So I took my week off to hang out with the kids and it was just what I needed. During that time, I read up on some of of my favorite blogs, which you can see to the right.

Anyway, after seeing The Dark Knight, I was asked how Iron Man measured up and really, you can not compare Iron Man to The Dark Knight. Iron Man was an origin story so to do a comparison you would have to make it Batman Begins. In this case, I feel the movies were equal to each other. The only edge that Iron Man gets from The Movie Whore is that I have always been a bigger Iron Man fan then a Batman fan. So, it is a preference thing. As far as the quality of the flicks, they are equal movies.

This got me to thinking about all the comic movies I have seen and I thought I would spend this week going over some them. The first part of the week is going to be devoted to Marvel and then I will move on to DC. Friday will be Frank Miller graphic novel day.

Now you have two types of people that watch these movies, the hardcore geeks who know the mythology and the back stories of these worlds and characters who have a great passion for the material and the film goer who knows nothing of the mythology except what is on the screen. When you read reviews of these flicks it is typically from one of these two sources. I am a hardcore geek who knows the mythology and I am obsessed with film so I am able to watch from both perspectives and I am going to give you both views of the films we are going to talk about. I am eager to see what kinds of comments this generates as these are films that have had comic fans either cheering or pissed the fuck off. I have been both. Now to jump on to the flicks.

X-Men Trilogy

Film Fan: I love this trilogy and if I forget everything I know about the mythology the third one is the best movie. It had strong characters and story. The performances were fantastic by everyone involved. The casting for certain key characters in this trilogy was flawless starting with Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier, Ian McKellan as Magneto and relatively unknown at the time Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. I even loved James Mardsen as Cyclops and ever sexy Famke Jansen as Jean Grey.

Through the films, there was consistency in the story they were telling and everything flowed seamlessly except one thing. They never really gave you the story of Logan and Jean. From the first one Logan has a strong lust for Jean but we never see enough interaction between the two to understand the this love story or even have it make any sense.

Again if I forget everything I know about the mythology, the Phoenix story in the third film was done very well. They gave you a plausible scenario for what takes place in Jean and why the transformation into the powerful Phoenix took place. In my opinion Charles had to die. It showed that Jean was not home and this split personality created by the professor in suppressing Jean’s power resenting being cooped up and took vengeance on the man responsible.

I did however find the clip at the end of the credits a little hokey and over the top. Jumping the shark anyone?

Over all I was quite pleased with this trilogy as a film fan.

Hardcore Geek: I was upset when we see Sabertooth and he does not call Logan “Runt.” That is where it starts to upset me. Rogue is supposed to be be able to take heavy damage with no effect. Logan took a shine to Jubilee. Where the hell was Morph?

How the hell do you kill off the Professor X?

Jean kills Cyclops, really is this where you want to go? WTF?

I could go on for 6 pages with a film by film breakdown of how the mythology was butchered. I know several other geek friends of mine that would agree with me.

What do I attribute these issues to?

Quite simply it is difficult to fit decades of mythology and intertwined story lines into to three movies. Given this, what I recommend to my fellow geeks is to try and forget everything you know and everything you read and enjoy these films as a stand alone story that was told quite well.

For an honorable mention I am going to throw Ghost Rider under the bus. I was never a big fan of the book but as a man who treasures film this flick sucked hardcore. How in the hell do you have a man that played “Grandpa” in a Thomas the Train movie play the devil. I am of course speaking of Peter Fonda whose portrayal of Satan was one of the worst crimes committed against film.

When I sat down to watch this flick I was actually enjoying it for about the first 30 minutes and then it just went downhill fast and I mean straight down. This film did nothing but get worse and worse. By the end I was happy it was over and I could take the spoon out of my ass. To quote Lewis Black, “If I am going to hurt this bad, I am going to do it to myself.”

Well kids that is going to do it for day one for Superhero week with The Movie Whore. Tune in tomorrow for a look at Spiderman and Fantastic 4 and who knows, I may throw some more honorable mentions in there as well. Remember to let me know what you think with your comments, specially if you disagree with me.

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